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Keystone pipeline ‘will be safe,’ company tells hearing

More than 600 people braved a late-season snowstorm to attend the Keystone XL pipeline hearings, which focus on the pipeline’s environmental impacts. Some drove for several hours through snow-swept country roads, then lined up for an hour or more outside the fairgrounds arena where the hearings were held.Photo: William Marsden/Postmedia News

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – Debate over the contentious Keystone XL pipeline, which over the last four years has turned into an epic battle between the oil industry and a relatively small number of impassioned Nebraska farmers and ranchers, reached a head here Thursday as activists and businessmen gathered to make their final pleas to U.S. federal government officials.

More than 600 people braved a late-season snowstorm to attend the hearings, which focus on the pipeline’s environmental impacts. Some drove for several hours through snow-swept country roads, then lined up for an hour or more outside the fairgrounds arena where the hearings were held.

In a truly American fashion, signs at the entrance warned people that no weapons or carried concealed weapons (CCWs) would be allowed in the building.

More than 200 people testified, many of whom portrayed pipeline owner TransCanada as a “foreign company invading our land.” Local members of Native American tribes such as the Sioux used the occasion to protest broken treaties and environmental contamination. Some opponents drove all night from Chicago, Colorado, Michigan and Arkansas to testify. All of them said they opposed the pipeline because they want the United States to turn away from fossil fuels.

If constructed, the pipeline will be the largest in the U.S. and will carry mostly oilsands bitumen from Alberta to Texas refineries. It will also carry some oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota.

While businessmen trumpeted the pipeline project as a major job creator and tax boom that will increase American energy security, landowners worried that it would pollute their water resources, damage grasslands and contribute to global warming.

The safety of pipelines and the toxicity of the heavy Canadian bitumen have become critical issues since recent pipeline ruptures in Michigan and Arkansas spilled thousands of barrels of the heavy crude into the environment, polluting rivers and residential neighbourhoods.

Corey Goulet, vice-president of Keystone Pipeline Projects, told U.S. State Department officials on the panel that the “the Keystone XL pipeline will be safe.”

He noted that in addition to complying with federal safety regulations, the company has voluntarily agreed to adopt an additional 57 safety measures. He said the pipeline would be safer than any other pipeline in the U.S.

“Pipelines are the safest and the most environmentally … sound method of transporting oil and gas,” he said.

Goulet also said that the pipeline would cause no “substantive change” to global greenhouse gas emissions.

He rejected claims that the project will contribute to the expansion of the oilsands and therefore an increase in GHG emissions.

Brigham McCown, former director of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials safety Administration, testified, “Pipelines are the safest form of transportation, bar none” and predicted that the Keystone XL, with its enhanced safety measures, “will be the safest pipeline ever built.”

He said pipelines are 451 times safer than rail on a per-mile basis and 29,280 times safer than motor vehicle transport.

McCown dismissed claims from opponents that diluted oilsands bitumen is more corrosive than conventional crude. “Studies in the United States and Canada have shown that this type of oil is not more corrosive,” he said.

“I do wish every pipeline in the country was built to (Keystone’s) state-of-the-art specifications,” he said.

Each time Keystone proponents testified, many opponents of the pipeline held up black armbands bearing the words “PIPELINE FIGHTER.”

“We are amongst those with the most to lose and the least to gain from the Keystone XL pipeline,” rancher Randy Thompson told the hearing. He called the battle over the pipeline a “heavyweight bout between our own citizens and a foreign corporation.

“(U.S. President Barack) Obama is going to have to declare a victor,” he said. “Is he going to raise the heavy hand of big oil or is he going to raise the hand and spirits of the American people?”

That statement won him a standing ovation from the landowners.

The fact that TransCanada is a foreign company is for many landowners a major issue in this debate. They say they resent the fact that a foreign company can come to Nebraska and claim eminent domain over a section of their land. Many landowners said their families have owned their land for more than a century.

Asked by a reporter if they would support the project had an American company owned it, some said they just don’t like being “lied to and mislead by a foreign company.”

Another landowner ended his testimony by saying, “Don’t let a foreign company take our land.”

Much of the debate arises out of distrust of TransCanada. In light of recent oil pipe ruptures, some landowners testified that they don’t believe the company’s promises that the pipeline will be safe from ruptures or that it will be properly maintained.

The U.S. State Department will consider this testimony in its final environmental impact report. The final decision on the pipeline’s fate is in Obama’s hands.

By law, his decision must be based on whether the pipeline is in the U.S. national interest. Hearings will be held on the issue of national interest later this year.

A recent poll found that 70 per cent of Nebraskans favour the pipeline.

But Jane Kleeb, whose activist group Bold Nebraska has been a lead organizer of Keystone opponents, in her testimony challenged Obama to live up to his promises of a clean-energy future for the U.S. by rejecting the Keystone XL.

“He asked us to be the change you want to see in this world,” she said with her supporters standing behind.

“That is exactly what every single person standing is doing. President Obama, it’s your turn to be the change that you talked about in your inaugural address … you told (Nebraskans) that Nebraskans are not going to take the few thousand jobs if that means risking our water and the future … We’re asking you to honour those words.”